in this twilight, how dare you speak of grace
by bloodbuzz
Summary: or, How the Hunger Games came to be.


"if you're still breathing, you're the lucky ones; 'cause most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs."

— "youth" by daughter

* * *

There is a military doctrine known as mutually assured destruction. It is a dark term most often uttered by war leaders with scars interrupting their faces and too much caffeine in their veins. The transaction usually takes place at a long, steel table among too much death and too much blood. In intelligible language, mutually assured destruction is this: one person has a really big stick, but the person he wishes to strike with his weapon has a stick just as sizable. The two adversaries devise a precarious armistice: if one decks the other, they can expect an attack of at least as much impetus in return. It catapults the all-important question to light: is their complete annihilation worth mine?

This is the manifesto Commander Alexander Coin presents to President Argolis Snow in a ruined room in no man's land. The two men, one praised and one feared, perch themselves on the edges of disagreeable steel stools and thrash out a treaty that profits scarcely any outside of that very war chamber. The men arise simultaneously and extend their palms, one covered with scars and one burnt by fire. Their handshake seals the fate of the country; every citizen of Panem is now a prisoner of their own government.

* * *

The sun is impossibly high in the heavens when the first lorry rumbles through the gate of the gargantuan wrought-iron wall separating District 2 from the outlying regions of District 1. The vehicles are substantial in size and a beaming ivory in color. The lorry comes to a rest outside of the abandoned recreational center. Hollow children have no need to play with half-deflated basketballs on a scuffed-up court.

In the wake of four paltry days, the building is bustling with stoic men decked out head-to-toe in bulky unpigmented uniform. The men laugh without exultation and smile with no teeth. In no time at all, they are strewn across the district in braces; each have a colossal gun and an even loftier ego. Their mission is simple: creating and maintaining order.

They call themselves Peacekeepers. They are harbingers of anything but peace.

* * *

Margaret Tanir is seven years old when the whispers of revolution begin. She focuses on the security of her fishhook and disregards the rushed hearsay coming from the other girls on the docks, because that is what her mother instructed her to do.

It is not until nearly two years later that Mags understands what the gossipmongers — revolutionaries, in a way — really meant down at the jetty when they whispered words like "change" and "insurgence", voices drowned out through the resonance of the ocean and the philistine utterances of the fishermen. She is but nine, but her face is etched with the age-old lines of war.

Nine short years later, she is Reaped, and she departs to war again. This time, she enters the inexhaustible battle as a soldier masking a petrified little girl.

Mags comes home triumphant. She is drowning in blood that does not hug her like the sea and shadows trail her in complete darkness. There is no parade in her honor.

* * *

The first year of strangled peace lulls the citizens of Panem into an erroneous perception of safety. The rebellion ends with a fleet of Capitol hovercrafts trekking to the outermost district of Panem and dropping explosive after explosive until there is nothing left of District 13 except ruins and radioactive dust.

That is what President Snow announces through every television screen in Panem. The rebels' surrender had not been a white flag affair. Rather, it was blood, death, and desperation. Tales are told of President Snow's awe-inspiring benevolence and generosity.

Renegade camps are disbanded and everyone tries to return to their pre-revolutionary lives as if it had never happened. As if the lifeblood of the country had not soaked the dirt they now walk on.

And so it goes.

On a burning bright early-August day, President Argolis Snow travels by bullet train to each of the Districts, a procession starting in District 1. The townspeople are all gathered in front of their square and the president asks — demands — for two volunteers, one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen. When no one steps forth, the president snaps his fingers and two Peacekeepers in their bulky suits march into the crowd and grip the arm of a girl, shaking and about seventeen, and a boy, uncomfortably stoic and sixteen. This boy and this girl — the volunteers, as they were — are placed on the stage on either side of President Snow.

The president pulls a card from his jacket, studies it, and places it down gently on the podium. "In response to the rebellion," he announces, "each district shall send one boy and one girl to fight in the Hunger Games. Out of the twenty-four children that enter the arena, only one will exit."

There is an uproar from the crowd, but whatever the citizens shriek, President Snow hears none of it. The door to the train slides open in his presence and he enters the blissful silence of his luxury car. Moments later, the door slides open again and the Peacekeepers drag the two frightened children through the car and into a hallway. Their cries echo throughout the train.

By the time the train stops at District 5, President Snow has given up hope of having volunteers. Upon his arrival, he orders the mayor to compile a list of every citizen within the district that is between the ages of twelve and eighteen, and divide them by sex.

The two large glass bowls seated in front of him are filled to the brim with hastily written scraps of paper. He repeats his speech for the fifth time, but instead of asking for volunteers, he reaches into one of the glass bowls and draws a name. When he reads it aloud, the Peacekeepers move to the center of the left side where a twelve-year-old child is huddling behind a taller girl. President Snow watches as the Peacekeepers tear the two children apart and drag the younger to the stage. He draws the next name.

* * *

Twenty-four untrained, underfed children go into the arena. None come out. Clumsy hands gripped deadly weapons and poisonous plants burned the throats of famished children. Argolis Snow curses and slams his fist against the table. His team goes back to work.

Every game needs a trial, after all.

* * *

**author's note**: a bit non-linear, but meant to be. thanks to Lucy for editing. :3 title taken from "broken crown" by mumford & sons. for the caesar's palace's monthly oneshot challenge. also for fanfiction imagination's instant challenge #4: dissemble.


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